commodity dollarn.
/kəˈmɒdᵻtɪ ˌdɒlə/, U.S. /kəˈmɑdədi ˌdɑlər/ Originally and chiefly U.S.† 1. The dollar as a monetary unit whose value is linked to a particular commodity. Obsolete. rare.
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society > trade and finance > money > standards and values of currencies > [noun] > specific monetary units or units of account > other spec.
markc1475
bar1732
rix-dollar1803
Canadian dollar1841
centime1842
pound1857
cent1871
commodity dollar1891
credit1893
shilling1921
centime1942
larin1978
1891 A. B. Westrup Financial Probl. 29 When the monetary unit is a legal tender commodity dollar, variations in the price of any commodity are affected, not only by supply and demand in that particular commodity, but also ‘supply and demand’ in the arbitrarily limited legal-tender-commodity-dollar.
1895 A. Kitson Sci. Solution Money Question xviii. 362 The gold dollar, the commodity dollar, is continually varying.
2. A form of currency proposed by Irving Fisher at the beginning of the 20th cent., whose gold value would be determined on the basis of the market price of a number of basic commodities; (sometimes) spec. a managed currency derived from Fisher's proposal attempted by the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the early 1930s. Also occasionally: a unit of this currency. Now historical. Cf. compensated dollar n. at compensate v. Additions.
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society > trade and finance > money > medium of exchange or currency > [noun] > currency systems and policies
decimal currency1824
bimetallism1876
monometallism1878
free silver1889
polymetallism1890
silverism1895
symmetallism1895
trimetallism1897
managed currency1898
single currency1900
compensated dollar1912
commodity dollar1918
soft currency1940
1918 Racine (Wisconsin) Jrnl.-News 10 Jan. 4/2 The opponents to a merchandise or commodity dollar, will insist the new system could not possibly make prices permanent.
1922 T. T. Hoyne Speculation i. vii. 63 Those commodity dollars so strongly advocated as true monetary units by Professor Fisher.
1933 Times 13 Dec. 14/1 The adoption of the Fisher and Warren ‘commodity dollar’ system.
1934 Rotarian Jan. 50/2 A fixed income of commodity dollars will maintain a fixed standard of living.
1983 A. U. Romasco Politics of Recovery vii. 123 ‘Rubber dollar’ quickly became a derisive epithet among critics of the commodity dollar.
2000 Mod. Lang. Rev. 95 604 The economic discipline not only of Taylor but of Irving Fisher and the notion of the self-regulating ‘commodity-dollar’.
3. (A name given to) any of the currencies of Australia, New Zealand, or Canada, whose economies depend on the export of one or more commodities. Cf. commodity currency n. (b) at commodity n. Compounds 3.
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society > trade and finance > money > medium of exchange or currency > [noun] > types of currency
soft currency1837
fiat-money1880
token coinage1881
token-money1889
token currency1893
monopoly money1895
hard currency1940
soft currency1940
reserve currency1950
petrocurrency1974
cryptocurrency1991
commodity dollar1998
1998 Austral. Financial Rev. 10 June 19/1 World markets have redefined the Aussie dollar. Once it was the commodity dollar, falling when world commodity prices dipped. Not now.
2002 E. Jones Rec. Global Econ. Devel. x. 148 The Australian economy has an opportunity to wean itself off dependence on resources and the commodity dollar.
2011 City A.M. (Nexis) 14 Sept. 26 For most of this year the strength of the commodity dollars has been one of the most consistent trends in the currency market.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, January 2018; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1891